Students in Mr. Seemy’s class were divided on whether the government should impose a service requirement for all young people the year after high school. Malik commented, “That seems kind of rigid to me. I think service should be voluntary. Plus, if students want to serve the community, they have plenty of time right now while they’re in high school.”  

Halley responded, “I disagree. I would love to allocate more time for service, but it’s difficult with so much school work. With a mandatory year of service, students could really commit to projects. Right now I help at the library by tutoring little kids to build up their literacy skills, but I feel like I could do a better job if I could be there more.”

Mr. Seemy agreed, “Allocating more time for youth service could benefit our community, as well as the volunteers.”

Halley questioned her teacher: “What are you talking about, Mr. Seemy? How can volunteering benefit the volunteers who are doing the work?”

Mr. Seemy decided to share results from a survey conducted by DoSomething.org. “DoSomething.org is an organization that helps young people take action on things that they care about. They gave surveys to over 4,000 young people and analyzed the data to determine the relationship between happiness and voluntary service. Let me share a graph with the class.”

Based on the data, what general statement can you make about the relationship between happiness and volunteering?

Why do you think some kinds of youth service correspond to higher levels of happiness than others? Do any of these differences surprise you?

Is there another way to interpret these data? What else could explain these results?

Discussion Question:

Do you think mandatory service would have the same benefits as voluntary service? Explain.